LOOK: Official Duke social media account criticizes team's poor first-half performance vs NC State
Duke completed its worst half of the season Wednesday night against the NC State Wolfpack. They trailed 22 points at halftime – and only have 22 points to its credit after 20 minutes.
Nothing is falling for the Blue Devils, and the Wolfpack can’t miss. Duke shot 29.2 percent from the floor (33.3 percent from three) and turned the ball over 13 times. No Blue Devil has more than six points at the break.
The performance was so atrocious that the Duke men’s basketball Twitter account was speechless from their team’s showing.
NC State has a 98.1 percent of holding on to its 44-22 lead, per ESPN’s play-by-play probability. The combined heroics from NC State’s Terquavion Smith and Jarkel Joiner – who are a combined 5-11 from deep – will lead the charge in maintaining the dominant lead.
Catch the second half live on the ACC Network.
Jon Scheyer explains why defense must be Duke’s identity
The Blue Devil’s victory over Maryland Eastern 82-55 last month highlighted a pillar of Duke basketball that will be needed come March: defense. Head coach Jon Scheyer explained.
“Yeah, it’s exciting. Because for a young group, this young of a group and a young team in terms of having experience playing together, that’s what it comes down to in March,” said Scheyer. “You need to get stops, and I think our offense will continue to develop through the course of the season. We’ve had not much practice time. So there are some possessions where we are just giving the ball, whether it be a tough shot we take; turnovers tonight were pretty good.
“That’s something I’m really looking forward to with the practice time, building our offense. But the defense is the base of who we are. When I found out I was going to be the head coach at Duke; two things always connected to Duke basketball: defense and sharing the ball. And we’ll continue to emphasize that. I’m just proud of the effort and the buy-in that our guys have had. I think we still have a lot of room to grow.”